BOSTON — No one can say Nathan Horton is averse to change or that he didn’t show a ton of character tonight at TD Garden.

Finally switching his stick from the model that scored him just 13 goals in the season’s first 51 games to one he bought in a Boston pro shop over the All-Star break, Horton erupted for one goal and five points in Boston’s 8-6 victory over Montreal.

The stick still had the price tag on it. While some have called for the Bruins to return Horton to Florida, the stick isn’t going back to the store and the sizeable winger might now finally start to earn his spot on the club’s top line.

To add to his offensive outburst, Horton was also a physical force and even got his paws on P.K. Subban, the trask-talking rookie defenseman who one Bruins player estimated turned down at least four fight invitations over the course of just one shift.

If the season has a happy ending for Horton, this victory over the Habs will undoubtedly be look at as a turning point. He had scored just one goal and four points in his last 12 games.

“It was just working hard. I think we were ready to go. We talked about it as a line, before the game, we need to start playing and start contributing,” he said after the fight-filled contest that featured a triple-digit PIM total. “I think we did that tonight but it’s only one game and hopefully we can continue to keep bringing it.”

Horton knows all too well how scoring one night doesn’t mean the next game is going to be as productive, as he has struggled to string together goals ever since the first couple weeks of the season. Readers of this blog know, however, that nothing seems to get Horton down. His smile is impossible to erase. Although his confidence may waver, it never vacates him either.

“Well yeah, I mean, I don’t know, maybe because I used a different stick tonight, maybe that was it. Hopefully that, and I’m playing with great linemates and they’re unbelievable players,” said Horton, who also used a curve of his blade that he used when he was 18 years old. “You’re gonna get lots of chances, you just need to capitalize on them. I guess like we talked about before the game, to help the team out a little bit more and I know we’re working hard, and it’s nice to help the team contribute and be part of that.”

All Horton needs to do is find a few more of those new sticks (he has just one more) and his contributions might become more frequent.

Horton does not get off a quick shot because he is not ready. That pass from Krejci came to him when he was standing upright, relaxed, coasting, not in shot-ready stance at all. He takes too much time off between plays. Assist were all not particularly anything special that he did.

I think it’s important to realize how a few of Horton’s assists came. Two of them were off his shots and one was created through traffic on top of the crease. This is great news, I’d much rather have Horton hitting the far post pad low (see Lucic and Seidenberg goal) than miss the net shooting for top corner.

He’s got an above average heavy wrist shot. He’s big. He can skate. He’s truculent. When guys are struggling to score they do seem to take that extra millesecond to take a shot. When I coached if I had a sniper struggling I’d remind him the centre ice faceoff dot is the exact middle of the net. The net has not moved in over 100 years . Some times you can’t look, you just fire. That’s how you break out of slumps.I’m glad we’ve got him. He has scored. He will score. Guys with his combination are not easy to find. Go Nate.

In yesterdays earlier post about Horton, a couple of people mentioned the length of time it takes for him to get the shot away, and man was that apparent last night. On that Krejci feed in close in the first in particular, he dusted off the puck in the blue paint! I understand that the puck was in his feet a bit, but man, you gotta let that thing fly anyway you can with one touch. It was apparent a couple of other times last night too.
Glad he put up a career night, and I hope it continues, but those who said that he needs to get rid of the disk quicker were bang on.